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I am currently playing in a GW store Campaign with my Skaven Roman Rats . 1000 points, but next week the points go up to 1250. I wondered what i should add to the army.

This is how the army currently stands.

Warlord
Halberd
Biting blade
98pts

Chieftain
Battle standard.
65pts

Warlock engineer
15pts
(just there to give my slave a leadership boost)

30 clanrats
spears, shields
full command
warpfire thrower
240pts

25 clanrats spears, shields
full command
145pst

26 clanrats shields
full command
137pts

50 slaves
full command
shields slings
150pts

Doomwheel
150pts

Total 1000pts

I may want to either add more weapon teams or switch weaponteamless clans into slaves. Then I would get some more of them to have bigger blocks, up the Warlock into a level 2, and/or get a lightning cannon

I have not had much luck with my weapons team. most of the time they get picked off b4 they get in range, and in my last battle the doomwheel Zapped them when i failed to restrain it. Poison wind mortars may be the way forward move and shoot.

Lv 2 warlock is good.. im liking that cause im alwayz gettin bullied by magic and range at the moment.

Might I suggest, since you have Skavenslaves, to drop the Shields, freeing up 25 points for your uses, I'd also suggest, having up to 30 slaves in a unit, if you want the back rank to absorb casualties, or just split them up into units of 10 and horde rank them, with that 25 free points from the shields, you can get another 10 and split them up into 3 lots of 20 or 2 lots of 30, more versatile then, and if something makes them panic, you aren't then losing the entire unit of slaves.

Also, to help more of your rats survive, might i suggest getting giant rats, at 38 points for a unit of 5 they can be very cheap attention grabbers, the enemy will have to either deal with them now (which can help you get units into position/attract ranged fire away from your main troops) or risk dealing with them later, meaning you could tie them up a little bit in combat.

(Also, saw your other list, I'm doing a Roman themed too, albeit Republican Roman themed )

Mortars are awesome... no need of LOS, move and fire they are by far the best weapon team.

I would take away a weapon from the warlord as if you have a magic... gotta use it before the special (halberd) you would then have to use before reg.

I would get a cannon, they are second only to mortars (points).

I would check your points on the BSB, don't have my book on me... but that number strikes me as wrong.

Your warlock is gunna get roughed up, I would get a grey seer and a bell and drop clanrats to slaves... but that is far more radical.

Uktabi wrote:
I would get a cannon, they are second only to mortars (points).

This is my suggestion, get a cannon or two, they have a potentially positive misfire which should make them like the star player for skaven, if you go for 2 i would then just buff out your units and equipment, add some extra units or go wider, if you're only going to go for one then maybe add a second set of slaves, and as for the doomwheel taking out your weapons teams I would suggest putting slaves between them as a buffer.

Thanks for all the advice guys

As it goes these are the following thing i will most likely do. I will post my new list later 2day as i have lost my hand written one which i use as a reference.

1. Warlock to lv2. as i really need sum magic.

2. Split the slave into 2 groups, and maybe purchase another warlock for ld. When i ran them in a 50 strong horde last time they were hit by the Flames Of the Phoenix spell. Was not fun :( I don't really want to drop the shields cause the have proved their worth in past game, but the slings may go if i need the points elsewhere

3. Swap the Warp-fire thrower for a mortar. The warp-fire thrower has failed me for the last time, its time for a new tactic.

4.Warp lighting cannon is something i have wanted in my army but i don't really like big metal models and i think a catapult would suit my roman themed army better.

I was thinking of converting an empire cannon to look like a Warp lighting one.

The plague claw catapult i was thinking of using the lort orc catapult and adding lots of Skaven stuff to it.

The shields though aren't doing anything, you haven't any light armour so the shields can't add to your armour save, only thing they could possibly do is maybe give you a parry save, but that's not all that useful.

Repeat after me: "Skavenslaves are expected losses"

keep them at range and use their slings to annoy your enemies, enough to get them to use magic or ranged attacks on them. With as low a WS and Ld (even with a Warlock) If they engage in close combat, they are going to get trounced, and are, pretty much going to run away instantly and most likely not reform, ever.

Skaven Slaves are only really good for one thing, to die, hopefully while doing something useful.

Look into getting a few giant rat units, while they may be 1 S less than Skavenslaves, they also have 1 better WS and automatically come with (for an additional 8 points) a packmaster whose Ld they can always use, his Ld being the same as a Warlock. The rats also get a better movement than Skavenslaves.

Say you have 30 Giant Rats in a horde, plus your packmaster would result in 7Ld, with all your ranks getting to attack. if you did it in a 5 rank width, 15 of them would attack but you'd end up with Ld10 for giant rats. Wheras if you did the same with Skavenslaves, only 10 would get to attack

The shields have work for me in the past. 6+ save then 6+ ward save.

My slaves have never been beaten in combat yet. They haven't won a combat yet either lol. They trap my enemies long enough for me to get other units in there with em to break d combat.

I think i will run one unit of 30 with shields and another of 30 with slings. That way i can assess how effective each are in battle.

I know shields lower your armour save needed, so 5+ instead of 6+ etc, but Slaves have NO armour whatsoever, therefore NO armour save at all, so I'm not sure whether shields on unarmoured units, by the rules, actually do let you have a 6+ AS (Since you can't reduce nothing by 1) the 6+ Parry save yeah, but not a 6+ AS

RayvenQ wrote:I know shields lower your armour save needed, so 5+ instead of 6+ etc, but Slaves have NO armour whatsoever, therefore NO armour save at all, so I'm not sure whether shields on unarmoured units, by the rules, actually do let you have a 6+ AS (Since you can't reduce nothing by 1) the 6+ Parry save yeah, but not a 6+ AS

Thats the first time I ever heard of that. So If my character was to take a Helmet but not body armor, by RAW he would not have an armor save? Pretty ridiculous. That would also mean that Night Goblins would never get a saves.

You do get a 6+ Armour save from a shield, it just not in the rule book. Its on the FAQ.

Shields
Add “If a model has no armour save apart from a shield, it
gains a 6+ armour save” to the end of the second paragraph.

http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m1330084a_FAQ_WarhammerRulebook_2010_v1.pdf

Wow didnt know they had to FAQ it. Curse you rule interpretations!

Neither did i until i looked.

Then again theres a lot of things I did not know via FAQs like Ogre BSB that can have equipment or Goblin Only equipment working on night goblins. They should really have a printed FAQ binder in store!